Josh Hartnett says being stalked by ‘unhealthy’ fans influenced decision to leave Hollywood

Actor says a man turned up to one of his film premieres carrying a gun and claiming to be his father

Josh Hartnett has revealed that his decision to step back from Hollywood for several years was influenced by his experiences being stalked by “borderline unhealthy” fans.

Hartnett, 46, was a breakout star of the late 1990s and early 2000s thanks to appearances in films such as The Faculty (1998), The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Black Hawk Down (2001).

He later took several breaks from acting and moved out of the United States to live in Hampshire with his wife, the British actor Tamsin Egerton.

In recent years he has returned to high-profile roles including in Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning Oppenheimer (2023) and M Night Shyamalan’s upcoming psychological thriller Trap.

Speaking to The Guardian, Hartnett said that one of the reasons he chose to move away from his early fame was that: “People’s attention to me at the time was borderline unhealthy.”

He went on to describe several incidences of stalking, saying: “There were incidents. People showed up at my house. People that were stalking me.”

Josh Hartnett in M Night Shayamalan’s ‘Trap’ (Universal Pictures)

As an example, he said that when he was 27, “a guy showed up at one of my premieres with a gun, claiming to be my father. He ended up in prison.”

The actor concluded: “There were lots of things. It was a weird time. And I wasn’t going to be grist for the mill.”

Hartnett also recently reflected on the “unhelpful” advice that his co-star Matt Damon shared with him on the set of Oppenheimer.

The actor played Ernest Lawrence, a Nobel Prize-winning nuclear physicist who worked with Oppenheimer at the University of California in Berkeley, while Damon played Manhattan Project director Leslie Groves.

“He gave me a lot of good advice,” recalled Hartnett on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. “One in particular — one thing that was just so unhelpful: He told me not to gain the weight I’d already gained for the role.

“I gained about 30 pounds for the role, and he was like, ‘You’re never gonna get that off again, man.’”

Hartnett explained that the Good Will Hunting actor has one piece of advice that he follows when taking on any new roles, “Don’t gain weight over 40.”

“He’s like, ‘You’re gonna spend the rest of your life trying to get that weight off and it’s never gonna come off because your body’s gonna want to get that weight back on,’” Hartnett continued.

“‘You’re just gonna keep growing back out to that size, and you’re going to try and get it off, but it’s just gonna go back. And he kept telling me, like, over the course of the production.”

Hartnett joked, “I was like, ‘Thanks, Matt. Thanks for telling me this now. I’ve already gained it.’”